Mormon Helping Hands pitching in to the effort

Nov. 18, 2012

Belmar, NJ- Moises Calle of Lawrenceville cuts a tree that had fallen during the storm. The Mormon Helping Hands program sponsored by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints sent crews into Belmar to help clean up the destruction brought about by superstorm Sandy. Doug Hood/ Staff Photographer 11/17/2012 / DOUG HOOD/ASBURY PARK PRESS

Belmar, NJ- Bob Vallone of West Windsor dumps wood from a tree that was down in the back of the houseThe Mormon Helping Hands program sponsored by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints sent crews into Belmar to help clean up the destruction brought about by superstorm Sandy. Doug Hood/ Staff Photographer 11/17/2012 / DOUG HOOD/ASBURY PARK PRESS

Mormon Helping Hands

Volunteers from The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints are available to assist in cutting down and removing trees, drywall, insulation, flooring and more. Priority is given to senior citizens and people with special needs. For more information, call 347-709-0438.

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BELMAR — They are no strangers to natural disasters. Wherever there is one, you can bet on seeing their volunteers in their trademark yellow vests assisting in the recovery efforts.

“Service to others. It’s a big part of what we are about,” said Sandra Duffy, the public affairs director for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints’ East Brunswick Stake.

In the first two weeks since superstorm Sandy hit, they’ve had more than 7,000 volunteers assist with cleanup efforts in the tri-state area as part of their Mormon Helping Hands humanitarian services.

Of these, 2,500 volunteers have come to New Jersey, with 140 missionaries helping daily and volunteers arriving on the weekends.

“We marshaled in the same forces to the Passiac River Valley after Irene,” Duffy said. “They were mainly pulling Sheetrock and carpeting out of the homes that were flooded.”

Duffy has seen first-hand some of the hard hit areas along the coast here from Sandy and was particularly moved by what she witnessed in Union Beach.

“There were mounds of debris. No house was untouched. Our young men spent all day just filling up the Dumpsters.”

Some of her volunteers have even lived through some of worse recorded natural disasters in history.

Maria Calle, for example, was just a kid in 1970 when the Ancash Earthquake — the worse natural disaster to ever hit Peru — occurred on May 31.

“Mucho muerte, many dead,” she said in both Spanish and English.

Calle now lives in Lawrenceville with her husband, Moises — originally of Ecuador. Both are members of the Princeton congregation of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints.

On Saturday, Calle and Moises were part of Duffy’s group that came to Belmar — another hard hit Jersey Shore town — to help residents with the cleanup there.

For some, what they saw was similarly surreal.

“When we came into Belmar, we passed a lot where we saw just mountains and mountains of stuff. It was kind of overwhelming to see all that was destroyed and how there was really nowhere else to put it,” said 16-year-old Parker Alkema of Monroe.

What Alkema saw was a municipal lot at the Belmar Marina, where the borough is temporarily dumping truckloads of debris from Sandy.

Duffy’s group moved up and down Ninth, Tenth and Seventh avenues, mainly putting their chainsaws to work on many a fallen tree.

“They are a godsend,” said Ninth Avenue resident Victoria Ciccone, after the group removed a tree from her backyard.

Ciccone was notified about Mormon Helping Hands by a leaflet in her mailbox last week. The leaflet is being passed about by the missionaries.

“This number on it is to a command center. They will take down your information and assign a crew to come and help you. We’ll be here in the area for the next three or four weeks. As long as we’re needed,” Duffy said.